An Obnoxiously French Restaurant Near Broadway, New York, Saturday Brunch Time

[suitably_heroic]

This was without a shadow of the doubt the most pretentious, expensive-looking, suits-laden restaurant Atton had ever laid eyes on, let alone entered. He had briefly considered going for some of his Earthside nice-button-ups anyway, but no. There was only one way to approach a place like this: ironically.

So that morning he'd grabbed the rattiest of his old Fandom-era band shirts, an incredibly over the top Megadeth thing, and a pair of jeans. He had now walked into the building wearing said ensemble, ignored all the looks, and informed the guy at the front that yes, actually, he had a reservation.

(Points to guy-at-the-front's sense of professionalism, honestly. If Atton hadn't been Force sensitive he wouldn't have known the man was affronted.)

And now he was there at a table by the windows (the obnoxiously be-curtained windows), slumped in his chair, sipping orange juice from a fancy mimosa glass.

Perfect atmosphere. A+.

[[ for the one in pink. ]]

Comments

[somethingwithturquoise]

Which was funny,because her strategy absolutely involved a solid TikTok element. Sorry 'bout it, Trent!

Summer was sending a faintly smirking look over the table to let Atton know just how saved by the server he was to keep her further commentary on the matter in check while he ordered. Her own order was,of course, an incredibly specific and complicated and referential sort of monster, with plenty of questions asked and answered with a sort of "oh, yes, thank you, that's perfect" or a "oh, no, that's totally fine, can we do this instead then?" vibe depending on the answer, ending with a very sweet "thank you, you're the best!"

And then her attention honed back in on the matter at hand with a, "Well, yeah. You've got to curate that shit. Do you know when everything will be ready? Will you have some files to send me so I can get a good idea of what we're working with?"

[suitably_heroic]

And here Atton wanted to voice some surprise she was being so take-charge and deep into the weeds about it right off the bat, but before he did so he realized he'd be lying, because he'd met Summer. "We'll finish recording sometime in the next couple of days, just because the studio isn't cheap," he said. "Then we're taking it all home to mix, so... maybe at the end of next week?"

He took his orange juice back into a slump with him.

"I think it's good stuff, so far," he said. "Obviously if it was just me and Jill doing it it'd be straight up glorious trash, prog noise that I wouldn't dream of sending your way, but..."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"....but it's not just you and Jill," Summer finished with a grin,"so it's actually somewhat fit for normal consumption. End of next week sounds great. And actually? If I send a little extra money your way for the studio space, can you and Jill actually record exactly that glorious prog rock trash my way anyway?"

[suitably_heroic]

Atton laughed. "Maybe in a couple months," he said. "I got us a permanent practice space with some of the money I saved up from Fandom, me and her have been hashing a few fun things out."

Feeling inspired was so weird.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Phone recording's fine for now, too!" Summer said. "I was thinking potential good bonus/leaked track material further down the line, but more immediately? One of the new guys has decided that the front of my store is the perfect place for his weird little EDM mid-day dance raves, and I just kind of wanted to see what would happen if I just blasted him with something like that one of these days."

[suitably_heroic]

"Sounds like an asshole," Atton said, tilting his head. "... Deal. We'll rustle something up."

He thought about it. Technically speaking he didn't play any kind of string instrument to record that with, so unless they roped Dane into it...

"If all else fails, I can also just send you some Meshuggah. If there's anything that can scramble some rave kid's brains..."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"I look forward to seeing where this may take us then," said Summer, snorting a laugh, "either way. So thanks for that. You guys been doing any shows? Or just focusing on the recording at the moment?"

[suitably_heroic]

"We've got a couple of cover shows planned over the next few weeks," Atton said. "Just to keep our muscle memory in place."

He glanced over towards the kitchen, where someone seemed to be having a hell of a time working on what appeared to be Summer's order.

"Kind of looking forward to having the original stuff in the can so we have an excuse to perform that."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Well, it's not just good for muscle memory, either," Summer pointed out, following Atton's gaze a little and having the decency to look a little sheepish, but, in her defense, it was part of the whole vibe, and it was a pretty simple order when you stripped it down, it was just cloaked in multiple layers of pretentious buzzwords.

(Omg metaphore!)

"Feet on the ground means word of mouth. What kind of places you playing at?"

[suitably_heroic]

"Mostly just a couple of our regular bars and clubs, here and in Jersey," Atton admitted. "But we did get one gig up at some small festival just out of town. Thought it'd be fun to do something new for a change."

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Yeeeeessss," Summer said, eyes brightening before the word festival had even finished leaving his mouth. "Festivals are a great route, especially if you're slotted mid-day before all the big acts and people are just willing to listen to anything while they're biding time. When's that one? I might want to check that out myself."

[suitably_heroic]

"Sometime in early July, I think?" Atton said, tilting his head. "You know. Height of summer season, bring a bucket of sunscreen?"

He shrugged. "Didn't realize there were that many places a new-ish band can just kind of... slot in to fill some time in those things. We've done band nights, obviously, but this feels like slightly-- more?"

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Perfect opportunity to price gouge on bottles of water," Summer mused, with a starry sort 'praise capitalism' look of wonderment that her current get-up practically required as an accessory, then she smirked. "But, yeah, no, great way to catch some unsuspecting ears. Some of those festivals pull in major numbers. I'll try to keep my schede open for it. It's been a while since I hit one, anyway."

[suitably_heroic]

"You just like having the excuse to hit up a less depressing city than Baltimore," Atton joked.

Because it was genuinely nice Summer was investing that much time and interest in his dumb little band project, but saying so aloud would be, like, weird.

[somethingwithturquoise]

"Please," said Summer, without missing a beat and with a pat-ten-ted roll of her eyes, "like I even need an excuse. But..." Here, she gave a lopsided grin. "It's still nice to have one, anyway."